Thursday

Aug 30, 2018 at 8:00 AM

Horror films have come a long way. In the 1930s, when Universal reigned as the king of horror, there were the relatively tame “Frankenstein,” “Dracula,” and “The Wolf Man.” Once the ’60s and ’70s arrived, so did new ways to scare audiences, from the psychological horror of “Psycho” and “Rosemary’s Baby” to the makeup- and special effects-fueled terror of “The Exorcist” and later on the comic gore of “Evil Dead 2.” In recent years there was the uneasiness of “The Blair Witch Project” and “Cloverfield.” Horror has been all over the map.

With “The Little Stranger,” director Lenny Abrahamson (“Frank,” “Room”) has created a class act of a horror film, with nary a monster in sight (of course, monsters don’t always have to be in sight).

Set in 1948 rural England, this opens with Dr. Faraday (Domhnall Gleeson) making a long drive out to the once splendid estate called Hundreds Hall, owned by the wealthy Ayres family, when a maid has fallen ill. It’s only the second time Faraday has been there, the first being as a young lad, when his mother, also a former maid there, brought him to attend a post-WWI party.

Though the film regularly inserts momentary flashbacks of that unsettling long-ago memory, Faraday now can’t stop thinking that both the home and the members of the Ayres family have seen better days.

The widowed Mrs. Ayres (Charlotte Rampling) shows some restrained dignity in dealing with current money troubles; her son Rod (Will Poulter, in an outstanding performance) has returned from WWII with a burnt face, a mangled leg, and both a drinking and an anger problem; her daughter Caroline (Ruth Wilson) shows no contentment about being stuck living in what’s become a foreboding home.

No one at Hundreds Hall is happy, including Betty, that maid, who likely just had some sort of fright. But neither is Faraday happy. He recently came back to this area, where he grew up but left as soon as he could, and is now saddled with looking after his deceased parents’ affairs. He feels like he’s missing medical opportunities he could have in a big city, but he’s stuck here, spending a lot of time in his car making house calls.

Hundreds Hall becomes a regular stop, where he looks in on Rod, and works in a little small talk with Caroline. There’s also a passing mention of Rod and Caroline’s older sister, Susan — nicknamed Suki — who died at the house when she was a child. There’s no direct talk of Suki when Faraday is invited to a small dinner gathering, but that’s the night Rod won’t come out of his bedroom, choosing instead to stay there, shaking and drinking to excess, and saying to Faraday, “I have a very bad feeling.”

As, it turns out, he should. Bad things soon happen, most of them off-screen, but staged with an effectively nerve-wracking cinematic approach. Faraday starts getting warnings, from all over, to leave the place and these people, and not look back. But he can’t do that. Does the home have a spell on him? Does he have an interest in Caroline? Even when Rod says to him, “There’s a thing in the house that hates me,” he doesn’t listen.

Longing for the unattainable is a central theme. Faraday, who grew up poor, wishes he could live in this home. Caroline, who was raised there, now wishes she could go away. Both of them are lonely, neither breaks a smile until they dance together at a town gathering.

But before any romance can blossom, the house starts calling for attention. Walls creak, doors slam, servant bells ring, the water turns brown. Mrs. Ayres calmly attributes these happenings to the ghost of Suki, but she never uses the word ghost. Faraday is a non-believer, Caroline doesn’t know what to make of it, Rod is dealing with issues beyond his control.

The ever-present gloominess turns to darkness. Hopes are built up, then dashed. Tragedy ensues. But no monster is seen. “The Little Stranger” is a subtly creepy movie with an ending that’s at the same time conclusive and open to interpretation. This is the stuff of psychological horror films that are done up in style.

— Ed Symkus writes about movies for More Content Now. He can be reached at esymkus@rcn.com.